Recipe Advice Thread

[denimglen]

Thought it might be handy to have a thread for some of the more advanced brewers to give some advice on recipes.

Let's see how it goes eh...

[martin w]

the brewing classic styles recipe is similar to yours with a smaller percentage of base and  a little bit more of the cara/aromatic and special.there is also only a bittering addition,he recommends 3787 starting at 18c and allowing it to rise to 21c over the course of a week and conditioning for a month at 7-10c.

[JackoNZ]

Yep from memory this was based on that recipe then tweaked a wee bit. I'm really after some feed back on those that have actually brewed this style though or even the Jamil recipe. Is it a good recipe to start with or would you recommend some changes to it?

[Michael]

Are you planning to make your own candi sugar?

[JackoNZ]

Nope, I've got a bottle of the stuff sitting in the fridge. I believe it is out of date by a month or so but should still be ok? It's just sugar, how can it go off!

[Paul Fraser]

I need some advice regarding a bittering hop that will compliment the rest of the recipe. For a 20l batch size I'm using

-5.1kg Maris Otter
-130g Crystal 80L
Recipe states 28g Northern Brewer @60mins, 7.8%AA for bittering. 7.8 HBU
14g cascade @15mins(flavour)
21g centennial @15mins(flavour)
28g cascade @2mins(aroma)
28g cascade dry hop.

Any suggestions on a nice bittering hop that will compliment this would be appreciated. Will be buying from DMH.

[Scarrfie]

Have you got the link to this saved. Going off that Green Bullet or Southern Cross from the Kiwi line up.

[MrC]

Nelson Sauvin is a great bittering hop for pale ales.

[FatD]

Forgot to do a beer for Octoberfest. Got a lot of specialty grains, so thought i'd hash them up and use steam yeast i got recently.. mixture of 2 or 3 recipes.. Don't have any good hops to use tho

 

Beer: Oktoberfest
Type: All grain Size: 5.5 gallons 
 
Alcohol: 6 and over?%
Water: Hard

Grain: 2 lb. pilsener (0.9kG)
6 lb. German Vienna (2.72kg)
1 lb. 12 oz. German Munich (0.5kg)
0.5 lb. Malanodin (0.23kg)
0.5 lb Abbey (0.23kg)
0.2 lb aromatic (0.1 kg)
=10.32 lb

1 oz. Tettnanger (4.8 AA 60 min.)
0.5 oz. Hallertauer Aroma 8.1AA 30 min.)
0.5 oz. Hallertauer Aroma 8.1AA 15 min.)
kettle finings (15 mins)
1 oz. Chezch Saaz  0 min (2.8AA)

Single infusion mash, 68deg for 60 minutes, 12.98 Litre
sparge = 22 Litre   73-74deg

Boil: 60 minutes 7.5 gallons

Yeast: WLP810, San Francisco Lager Yeast (the Anchor Steam strain).
 

Carbonation: Keg and force carbonate @22psi

[Duncan G]

Long time viewer, first time poster.... here we go.

 

Left over grain stout

 

Am running a bit short in my stout holdings and have some munich ii, medium crystal, torrified wheat as well as some EKG hops  left over so thought I might through the whole lot in and solve two issues with one brew. Any comments welcome

 

 

79%        4.2kg   Marris Otter

7%          .35kg   Chocolate

6%          .30kg   Roast Barley

4%          .20kg   Munich II

4%          .20kg   Medium Crystal

2%          .10kg   Torrified Wheat

 

60 min 42g EKG @ 5.6AA

15 min 20g EKG @5.6AA

 

60 min boil

Initial boil volume 25litres

Final brew volume 19lites

 

Dennys Fav50 yeast

 

Also – ¼ teaspoon Koppafloc

          2.5g Wyeast nutrient

 

Thinking about throwing some toasted oak chips in after 7 days for a week (I stopped using secondary’s earlier in the year)

 

Prime with treacle (will figure the amount when I bottle)

 

Est OG 1056 (63% eff)

Est FG 1013

Est Alcohol  5.7%

Est IBUs  40.5

[Gareth]

This is really a question about gravity.

 

I just made a scaled-down, extract with steeped grains version of Zainasheff's Taddy Porter. 10.5 litres are in the fermenter.

 

Now I plugged everything into my brewing software to ensure I'd hit the right gravity for the smaller fermenter. Here are my ingredients:

 

- 1.5kg Black Rock Amber liquid malt extract

- 218gm Brown malt

- 218gm Medium crystal

- 134gm Chocolate malt 

 

Every piece of software I've used has told me I should expect a starting gravity of about 1.052. However, the hydrometer reading I took before pitching came out at 1.034.

 

I can't work out why the brew came in so low. By my workings the extract should contribute about 1.040 a this volume, and another 1.010 from the grains.

 

Can anyone suggest what might have gone wrong. Is my maths confused? Is the Black Rock a particularly thin extract, and perhaps didn't contribute as many gravity points as I calculated?

 

[Ralph]

Your numbers seem correct Gareth.

 

You are sure that it is 10.5 Litres and not a whole bunch more in your fermentor and you are sure that your hydrometer is calibrated correctly and that when you measured the wort before pitching that it was at 20 deg C? Should be easy to check the zero on your hydrometer. Simply measure a plain water sample.

 

Last time I buggered a recipe up it was because my scales flipped from kg to pounds and I did not notice... as I measure my water volumes by weight it threw everything out!

[Mark]

Wort temp can make a big difference to grav readings, most hydrometers are calibrated to 16C (I think!)